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Fast Money & Foreign Objects
By ERIK ECKHOLM and JOHN SCHWARTZMAY 1, 2014
- Finding a suitable vein and placing an IV line took 51 minutes. A medical technician searched both of his arms, both of his legs and both of his feet for a vein into which to insert the needle, but “no viable point of entry was located,” reported the corrections chief, Robert Patton, in a letter to Gov. Mary Fallin that her office released. A doctor, the letter said, “went to the groin area.”
Clayton Lockett slashed his arm the morning of his execution, according to officials.CreditOklahoma Department of Corrections
A catheter was inserted into Mr. Lockett’s groin, and officials placed a sheet over him for privacy. The account did not make clear who inserted the catheter.
The Department of Corrections provided the newly detailed account as it reels from questions about its execution procedures and training of personnel as well as its secret sources of lethal drugs.
The detailed timeline raised further questions about Mr. Lockett’s treatment before and during the bungled execution and subsequent death. Mr. Patton recommended indefinitely suspending further executions, an independent review of what took place, and that he be given power over execution protocol and decision making, rather than the state penitentiary warden.
“I believe the report will be perceived as more credible if conducted by an external entity,” Mr. Patton said. The governor had previously called for a review by state officials.
The account gave greater detail about Mr. Lockett’s final minutes and the frantic scene that unfolded after the blinds were drawn on witnesses. With something clearly going terribly wrong, the doctor “checked the IV and reported that the blood vein had collapsed, and the drugs had either absorbed into the tissue, leaked out or both,” Mr. Patton wrote.
The warden called Mr. Patton, who asked, “Have enough drugs been administered to cause death?” The doctor answered no.
“Is another vein available, and if so, are there enough drugs remaining?” The doctor responded no again. Mr. Patton then asked about Mr. Lockett’s condition; the warden said that the doctor “found a faint heartbeat” and that Mr. Lockett was unconscious.
At 6:56, Mr. Patton called off the execution. Ten minutes later, at 7:06, “Doctor pronounced Offender Lockett dead,” the letter states.
Legal experts on the death penalty said they were surprised, and even shocked, by several things revealed in the new letter. “I’ve never heard of a case of an inmate being Tasered before being executed,” said Deborah Denno, an expert on execution at Fordham Law School and a death penalty opponent.
David Dow, a death penalty appellate lawyer in Texas, said that prisoners sometimes resist leaving their cells, but that “it’s not something that happens regularly.” He expressed surprise that the medical staff administering the drugs did not have a second vein ready in case of problems with the first. “For a state that executes people,” he said, “they are awfully bad at it.”
Madeline Cohen, a federal public defender who is counsel to a second prisoner who was originally to have been executed on Tuesday night, issued a statement criticizing the incremental release of information.
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Graphic: How the Execution Went Wrong
“Oklahoma is revealing information about this excruciatingly inhumane execution in a chaotic manner, with the threat of execution looming over Charles Warner,” she said, referring to the second prisoner. “This most recent information about the tortuous death of Mr. Lockett, and the state’s efforts to whitewash the situation, only intensifies the need for transparency.”
Mr. Lockett was condemned for the murder of a 19-year-old woman whom he shot and buried alive. Mr. Warner was convicted of raping and killing an 11-month-old girl.
The disorderly execution, Mr. Lockett’s apparent suffering and the legal battles within Oklahoma that preceded it over the state’s refusal to disclose where it obtained execution drugs have drawn international attention to problems with lethal injections. Accidents have become more common, experts say, as states, facing shortages in critical drugs, are trying new drugs and combinations from secret sources.
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But Oklahoma officials said that problems with the IV delivery, not the drugs themselves, accounted for Tuesday night’s problems.
Anesthesiologists said that while they sometimes use a femoral vein accessible from the groin when those in the arms and legs are not accessible, the procedure is more complicated and potentially painful.
Putting a line in the groin “is a highly invasive and complex procedure which requires extensive experience, training and credentialing,” said Dr. Mark Heath, an anesthesiologist at Columbia University. Oklahoma does not reveal the personnel involved in executions.
“There are a number of ways of checking whether a central line is properly placed in a vein, and had those been done they ought to have known ahead of time that the catheter was improperly positioned,” Dr. Heath said.
Dr. Joel Zivot, an anesthesiologist at the Emory University School of Medicine, said that the prison’s initial account that the vein had collapsed or blown was almost certainly incorrect.
“The femoral vein is a big vessel,” Dr. Zivot said. Finding the vein, however, can be tricky. The vein is not visible from the surface, and is near a major artery and nerves. “You can’t feel it, you can’t see it,” he said.
Without special expertise, Dr. Zivot said, the failure was not surprising.
Alex Weintz, a spokesman for the governor, said that Ms. Fallin could grant a stay only of up to 60 days, and that a request for an indefinite stay would have to be made by the attorney general to the state’s Court of Criminal Appeals.
“If he chooses to make that request, Governor Fallin would support him,” Mr. Weintz said. “Ultimately, Governor Fallin’s goal, as well as Director Patton’s, is to review the procedures at the Department of Corrections, ensure they work and then proceed with lawful executions in Oklahoma.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/02/u...icmst=1388552400000&bicmet=1420088400000&_r=3
